![Web 2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Web_2.0_Map.svg)
Web 2.0 (also known as participative (or participatory) web and social web)
refers to
website
A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google Search, Google, Facebook, Amaz ...
s that emphasize
user-generated content
User-generated content (UGC), alternatively known as user-created content (UCC), is any form of content, such as images, videos, text, testimonials, and audio, that has been posted by users on online platforms such as social media, discussion f ...
,
ease of use
Usability can be described as the capacity of a system to provide a condition for its users to perform the tasks safely, effectively, and efficiently while enjoying the experience. In software engineering, usability is the degree to which a soft ...
,
participatory culture
Participatory culture, an opposing concept to consumer culture, is a culture in which private individuals (the public) do not act as consumers only, but also as contributors or producers (prosumers). The term is most often applied to the product ...
and
interoperability
Interoperability is a characteristic of a product or system to work with other products or systems. While the term was initially defined for information technology or systems engineering services to allow for information exchange, a broader defi ...
(i.e., compatibility with other products, systems, and devices) for
end user
In product development, an end user (sometimes end-user) is a person who ultimately uses or is intended to ultimately use a product. The end user stands in contrast to users who support or maintain the product, such as sysops, system administrat ...
s.
The term was coined by
Darcy DiNucci in 1999
[
] and later popularized by
Tim O'Reilly
Tim O'Reilly (born 6 June 1954) is the founder of O'Reilly Media (formerly O'Reilly & Associates). He popularised the terms open source and Web 2.0.
Education and early life
Born in County Cork, Ireland, Tim O'Reilly moved to San Francisco, C ...
and
Dale Dougherty
Dale Dougherty (born 1956) is a co-founder of O'Reilly Media, along with Tim O'Reilly. While not at the company in its earliest stages as a technical documentation consulting company, Dale was instrumental in the development of O'Reilly's publish ...
at the first
Web 2.0 Conference in 2004.
Although the term mimics the numbering of software versions, it does not denote a formal change in the nature of the World Wide Web, but merely describes a general change that occurred during this period as interactive websites proliferated and came to overshadow the older, more static websites of the original Web.
A Web 2.0 website allows users to interact and collaborate with each other through
social media
Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...
dialogue as creators of
user-generated content
User-generated content (UGC), alternatively known as user-created content (UCC), is any form of content, such as images, videos, text, testimonials, and audio, that has been posted by users on online platforms such as social media, discussion f ...
in a
virtual community
A virtual community is a social network of individuals who connect through specific social media, potentially crossing geographical and political boundaries in order to pursue mutual interests or goals. Some of the most pervasive virtual communi ...
. This contrasts the first generation of
Web 1.0
Web 2.0 (also known as participative (or participatory) web and social web) refers to websites that emphasize user-generated content, ease of use, participatory culture and interoperability (i.e., compatibility with other products, systems, and ...
-era websites where people were limited to viewing
content
Content or contents may refer to:
Media
* Content (media), information or experience provided to audience or end-users by publishers or media producers
** Content industry, an umbrella term that encompasses companies owning and providing mas ...
in a passive manner. Examples of Web 2.0 features include
social networking site
A social networking service or SNS (sometimes called a social networking site) is an online platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, act ...
s or
social media
Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...
sites (e.g.,
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
),
blog
A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...
s,
wiki
A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pu ...
s,
folksonomies ("tagging" keywords on websites and links),
video sharing
An online video platform (OVP), provided by a video hosting service, enables users to upload, convert, store and play back video content on the Internet, often via a structured, large-scale system that may generate revenue. Users will generally u ...
sites (e.g.,
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
),
image sharing
Image sharing, or photo sharing, is the publishing or transfer of digital photos online. Image sharing websites offer services such as uploading, hosting, managing and sharing of photos (publicly or privately). This function is provided through ...
sites (e.g.,
Flickr
Flickr ( ; ) is an American image hosting and video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was a popular way for amateur and professional ...
),
hosted services,
Web application
A web application (or web app) is application software that is accessed using a web browser. Web applications are delivered on the World Wide Web to users with an active network connection.
History
In earlier computing models like client-serve ...
s ("apps"),
collaborative consumption
Collaborative consumption is the set of those resource circulation systems in which consumers both "obtain" and "provide", temporarily or permanently, valuable resources or services through direct interaction with other consumers or through a m ...
platforms, and
mashup applications.
Whether Web 2.0 is substantially different from prior Web technologies has been challenged by World Wide Web inventor
Tim Berners-Lee
Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee (born 8 June 1955), also known as TimBL, is an English computer scientist best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web. He is a Professorial Fellow of Computer Science at the University of Oxford and a profess ...
, who describes the term as
jargon
Jargon is the specialized terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity. Jargon is normally employed in a particular Context (language use), communicative context and may not be well understood outside that context. The conte ...
.
His original vision of the Web was "a collaborative medium, a place where we
ould Ould is an English surname and an Arabic name ( ar, ولد). In some Arabic dialects, particularly Hassaniya Arabic, ولد (the patronymic, meaning "son of") is transliterated as Ould. Most Mauritanians have patronymic surnames.
Notable p ...
all meet and read and write". On the other hand, the term
Semantic Web (sometimes referred to as Web 3.0) was coined by Berners-Lee to refer to a web of content where the meaning can be processed by machines.
History
Web 1.0
Web 1.0 is a
retronym
A retronym is a newer name for an existing thing that helps differentiate the original form/version from a more recent one. It is thus a word or phrase created to avoid confusion between older and newer types, whereas previously (before there were ...
referring to the first stage of the
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet.
Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web se ...
's evolution, from roughly 1991 to 2004. According to Graham Cormode and Balachander Krishnamurthy, "content creators were few in Web 1.0 with the vast majority of users simply acting as consumers of content".
Personal web page
Personal web pages are World Wide Web pages created by an individual to contain content of a personal nature rather than content pertaining to a company, organization or institution. Personal web pages are primarily used for informative or enter ...
s were common, consisting mainly of static pages hosted on
ISP
An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise private ...
-run
web server
A web server is computer software and underlying hardware that accepts requests via HTTP (the network protocol created to distribute web content) or its secure variant HTTPS. A user agent, commonly a web browser or web crawler, initiate ...
s, or on
free web hosting service
A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that hosts websites for clients, i.e. it offers the facilities required for them to create and maintain a site and makes it accessible on the World Wide Web. Companies providing web h ...
s such as
Tripod
A tripod is a portable three-legged frame or stand, used as a platform for supporting the weight and maintaining the stability of some other object. The three-legged (triangular stance) design provides good stability against gravitational loads ...
and the now-defunct
GeoCities
Yahoo! GeoCities was a web hosting service that allowed users to create and publish websites for free and to browse user-created websites by their theme or interest. GeoCities was started in November 1994 by David Bohnett and John Rezner, and w ...
. With Web 2.0, it became common for average web users to have social-networking profiles (on sites such as
Myspace and
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
) and personal blogs (sites like
Blogger
A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order s ...
,
Tumblr
Tumblr (stylized as tumblr; pronounced "tumbler") is an American microblogging and social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007 and currently owned by Automattic. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content to a sho ...
and
LiveJournal
LiveJournal (russian: Живой Журнал), stylised as LiVEJOURNAL, is a Russian-owned social networking service where users can keep a blog, journal, or diary.
American programmer Brad Fitzpatrick started LiveJournal on April 15, 1999, as ...
) through either a low-cost
web hosting service
A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that hosts websites for clients, i.e. it offers the facilities required for them to create and maintain a site and makes it accessible on the World Wide Web. Companies providing web h ...
or through a dedicated host. In general, content was generated dynamically, allowing readers to comment directly on pages in a way that was not common previously.
Some Web 2.0 capabilities were present in the days of Web 1.0, but were implemented differently. For example, a Web 1.0 site may have had a
guestbook
A guestbook (also guest book, visitor log, visitors' book, visitors' album) is a paper or electronic means for a visitor to acknowledge a visit to a site, physical or web-based, and leave details such as their name, postal or electronic addres ...
page for visitor comments, instead of a
comment section The comments section is a feature on most online blogs, news websites, and other websites in which the publishers invite the audience to comment on the published content. This is a continuation of the older practice of publishing letters to the edi ...
at the end of each page (typical of Web 2.0). During Web 1.0, server performance and bandwidth had to be considered—lengthy comment threads on multiple pages could potentially slow down an entire site.
Terry Flew, in his third edition of ''New Media,'' described the differences between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 as a
Flew believed these factors formed the trends that resulted in the onset of the Web 2.0 "craze".
Characteristics
Some common design elements of a Web 1.0 site include:
* Static pages rather than
dynamic HTML
Dynamic HTML, or DHTML, is a term which was used by some browser vendors to describe the combination of HTML, style sheets and client-side scripts (JavaScript, VBScript, or any other supported scripts) that enabled the creation of interactive ...
.
* Content provided from the server's
filesystem
In computing, file system or filesystem (often abbreviated to fs) is a method and data structure that the operating system uses to control how data is stored and retrieved. Without a file system, data placed in a storage medium would be one larg ...
rather than a relational database management system (
RDBMS
A relational database is a (most commonly digital) database based on the relational model of data, as proposed by E. F. Codd in 1970. A system used to maintain relational databases is a relational database management system (RDBMS). Many relation ...
).
* Pages built using
Server Side Includes
Server Side Includes (SSI) is a simple interpreted server-side scripting language used almost exclusively for the World Wide Web. It is most useful for including the contents of one or more files into a web page on a web server (see below), using i ...
or
Common Gateway Interface
In computing, Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is an interface specification that enables web servers to execute an external program, typically to process user requests.
Such programs are often written in a scripting language and are commonly ref ...
(CGI) instead of a
web application
A web application (or web app) is application software that is accessed using a web browser. Web applications are delivered on the World Wide Web to users with an active network connection.
History
In earlier computing models like client-serve ...
written in a
dynamic programming language
In computer science, a dynamic programming language is a class of high-level programming languages, which at runtime execute many common programming behaviours that static programming languages perform during compilation. These behaviors cou ...
such as
Perl
Perl is a family of two high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming languages. "Perl" refers to Perl 5, but from 2000 to 2019 it also referred to its redesigned "sister language", Perl 6, before the latter's name was offici ...
,
PHP
PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared toward web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by The PHP Group ...
,
Python
Python may refer to:
Snakes
* Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia
** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia
* Python (mythology), a mythical serpent
Computing
* Python (pro ...
or
Ruby
A ruby is a pinkish red to blood-red colored gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum ( aluminium oxide). Ruby is one of the most popular traditional jewelry gems and is very durable. Other varieties of gem-quality corundum are called sa ...
.
* The use of
HTML 3.2
The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScript ...
-era elements such as
frames and tables to position and align elements on a page. These were often used in combination with
spacer GIF
A spacer GIF is a small, transparent GIF image that is used in web design and HTML coding. They were used to control the visual layout of HTML elements on a web page, at a time when the HTML standard alone did not allow this. They became mostly o ...
s.
* Proprietary
HTML
The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScri ...
extensions, such as the
<blink> and
<marquee> tags, introduced during the
first browser war
A browser war is competition for dominance in the usage share of web browsers. The "first browser war," (1995-2001) pitted Microsoft's Internet Explorer against Netscape's Navigator. Browser wars continued with the decline of Internet Explorer ...
.
* Online
guestbook
A guestbook (also guest book, visitor log, visitors' book, visitors' album) is a paper or electronic means for a visitor to acknowledge a visit to a site, physical or web-based, and leave details such as their name, postal or electronic addres ...
s.
*
GIF
The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , see pronunciation) is a bitmap image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released on 15 June 1987. ...
buttons, graphics (typically 88×31
pixel
In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device.
In most digital display devices, pixels are the smal ...
s in size) promoting
web browser
A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...
s,
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...
s,
text editor
A text editor is a type of computer program that edits plain text. Such programs are sometimes known as "notepad" software (e.g. Windows Notepad). Text editors are provided with operating systems and software development packages, and can be us ...
s and various other products.
* HTML forms sent via
email
Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...
. Support for
server side scripting
Server-side scripting is a technique used in web development which involves employing scripts on a web server which produces a response customized for each user's (client's) request to the website. The alternative is for the web server itself ...
was rare on
shared server
A shared web hosting service is a web hosting service where many websites reside on one web server connected to the Internet. The overall cost of server maintenance is spread over many customers. By using shared hosting, the website will share a ...
s during this period. To provide a feedback mechanism for web site visitors,
mailto
mailto is a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) scheme for email addresses. It is used to produce hyperlinks on websites that allow users to send an email to a specific address directly from an HTML document, without having to copy it and entering i ...
forms were used. A user would fill in a form, and upon clicking the form's submit button, their
email client
An email client, email reader or, more formally, message user agent (MUA) or mail user agent is a computer program used to access and manage a user's email.
A web application which provides message management, composition, and reception functio ...
would launch and attempt to send an email containing the form's details. The popularity and complications of the mailto protocol led browser developers to incorporate
email client
An email client, email reader or, more formally, message user agent (MUA) or mail user agent is a computer program used to access and manage a user's email.
A web application which provides message management, composition, and reception functio ...
s into their browsers.
Web 2.0
The term "Web 2.0" was coined by
Darcy DiNucci, an
information architecture
Information architecture (IA) is the structural design of shared information environments; the art and science of organizing and labelling websites, intranets, online communities and software to support usability and findability; and an emerging ...
consultant, in her January 1999 article "Fragmented Future":
Writing when
Palm Inc.
Palm, Inc. was an American company that specialized in manufacturing personal digital assistants (PDAs) and various other electronics. They were the designer of the PalmPilot
The PalmPilot Personal and PalmPilot Professional are the second ...
introduced its first web-capable
personal digital assistant
A personal digital assistant (PDA), also known as a handheld PC, is a variety mobile device which functions as a personal information manager. PDAs have been mostly displaced by the widespread adoption of highly capable smartphones, in partic ...
(supporting Web access with
WAP
WAP or Wap may refer to:
Music
* "WAP" (song), a 2020 song by Cardi B featuring Megan Thee Stallion
Organizations
* Weatherization Assistance Program, for US energy costs
* Western Australia Party, a political party founded in 2016
* Western A ...
), DiNucci saw the Web "fragmenting" into a future that extended beyond the browser/PC combination it was identified with. She focused on how the basic information structure and hyper-linking mechanism introduced by
HTTP
The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, ...
would be used by a variety of devices and platforms. As such, her "2.0" designation refers to the next version of the Web that does not directly relate to the term's current use.
The term Web 2.0 did not resurface until 2002.
[Knorr, Eric. 2003. The year of Web services. CIO, December 15.] Such as Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, and Google, made it easy to con- nect and engage in online transactions. Web 2.0 introduced new features, such as multimedia content and interactive web applications, which mainly consisted of two-dimensional screens. Kinsley and Eric focus on the concepts currently associated with the term where, as Scott Dietzen puts it, "the Web becomes a universal, standards-based integration platform".
In 2004, the term began to popularize when
O'Reilly Media
O'Reilly Media (formerly O'Reilly & Associates) is an American learning company established by Tim O'Reilly that publishes books, produces tech conferences, and provides an online learning platform. Its distinctive brand features a woodcut of an ...
and MediaLive hosted the first Web 2.0 conference. In their opening remarks,
John Battelle
John Linwood Battelle (born November 4, 1965) is an entrepreneur, author and journalist. Best known for his work creating media properties, Battelle helped launch ''Wired'' in the 1990s and launched ''The Industry Standard ''during the dot-com bo ...
and Tim O'Reilly outlined their definition of the "Web as Platform", where software applications are built upon the Web as opposed to upon the desktop. The unique aspect of this migration, they argued, is that "customers are building your business for you".
[O'Reilly, Tim, and John Battelle. 2004. Opening Welcome: State of the Internet Industry. In San Francisco, California, October 5.] They argued that the activities of users generating content (in the form of ideas, text, videos, or pictures) could be "harnessed" to create value. O'Reilly and Battelle contrasted Web 2.0 with what they called "Web 1.0". They associated this term with the business models of
Netscape
Netscape Communications Corporation (originally Mosaic Communications Corporation) was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was onc ...
and the
Encyclopædia Britannica Online
An encyclopedia (American English) or encyclopædia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either general or special to a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into article ...
. For example,
In short, Netscape focused on creating software, releasing updates and bug fixes, and distributing it to the end users. O'Reilly contrasted this with
Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
, a company that did not, at the time, focus on producing end-user software, but instead on providing a service based on data, such as the links that Web page authors make between sites. Google exploits this user-generated content to offer Web searches based on reputation through its "
PageRank
PageRank (PR) is an algorithm used by Google Search to rank web pages in their search engine results. It is named after both the term "web page" and co-founder Larry Page. PageRank is a way of measuring the importance of website pages. According ...
" algorithm. Unlike software, which undergoes scheduled releases, such services are constantly updated, a process called "the
perpetual beta
Perpetual beta is the keeping of software or a system at the beta development stage for an extended or indefinite period of time. It is often used by developers when they continue to release new features that might not be fully tested. Perpetual b ...
". A similar difference can be seen between the
Encyclopædia Britannica Online
An encyclopedia (American English) or encyclopædia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either general or special to a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into article ...
and
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...
– while the Britannica relies upon experts to write articles and release them periodically in publications, Wikipedia relies on trust in (sometimes anonymous) community members to constantly write and edit content. Wikipedia editors are not required to have educational credentials, such as degrees, in the subjects in which they are editing. Wikipedia is not based on subject-matter expertise, but rather on an adaptation of the
open source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...
software adage
"given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow". This maxim is stating that if enough users are able to look at a software product's code (or a website), then these users will be able to fix any "
bugs" or other problems. The Wikipedia volunteer editor community produces, edits, and updates articles constantly. Web 2.0 conferences have been held every year since 2004, attracting
entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...
s, representatives from large companies, tech experts and technology reporters.
The popularity of Web 2.0 was acknowledged by
2006 ''TIME magazine'' Person of The Year (''You''). That is, ''
TIME
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' selected the masses of users who were participating in content creation on
social network
A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for an ...
s, blogs, wikis, and media sharing sites.
In the cover story,
Lev Grossman
Lev Grossman (born June 26, 1969) is an American novelist and journalist who wrote ''The Magicians Trilogy'': '' The Magicians'' (2009), '' The Magician King'' (2011), and '' The Magician's Land'' (2014). He was the book critic and lead technolog ...
explains:
Characteristics
Instead of merely reading a Web 2.0 site, a user is invited to contribute to the site's content by commenting on published articles, or creating a
user account
A user is a person who utilizes a computer or network service.
A user often has a user account and is identified to the system by a username (or user name). Other terms for username include login name, screenname (or screen name), accoun ...
or
profile
Profile or profiles may refer to:
Art, entertainment and media Music
* ''Profile'' (Jan Akkerman album), 1973
* ''Profile'' (Githead album), 2005
* ''Profile'' (Pat Donohue album), 2005
* ''Profile'' (Duke Pearson album), 1959
* '' ''Profi ...
on the site, which may enable increased participation. By increasing emphasis on these already-extant capabilities, they encourage users to rely more on their browser for
user interface
In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...
,
application software
Application may refer to:
Mathematics and computing
* Application software, computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks
** Application layer, an abstraction layer that specifies protocols and interface methods used in a c ...
("apps") and
file storage
In computing, file system or filesystem (often abbreviated to fs) is a method and data structure that the operating system uses to control how data is stored and retrieved. Without a file system, data placed in a storage medium would be one larg ...
facilities. This has been called "network as platform" computing.
Major features of Web 2.0 include
social networking
A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for an ...
websites, self-publishing platforms (e.g.,
WordPress
WordPress (WP or WordPress.org) is a free and open-source content management system (CMS) written in hypertext preprocessor language and paired with a MySQL or MariaDB database with supported HTTPS. Features include a plugin architecture ...
' easy-to-use blog and website creation tools),
"tagging" (which enables users to label websites, videos or photos in some fashion),
"like" buttons (which enable a user to indicate that they are pleased by online content), and
social bookmarking
Social bookmarking is an online service which allows users to add, annotate, edit, and share bookmarks of web documents. Many online bookmark management services have launched since 1996; Delicious, founded in 2003, popularized the terms "social ...
.
Users can provide the data and exercise some control over what they share on a Web 2.0 site.
These sites may have an "architecture of participation" that encourages users to add value to the application as they use it.
Users can add value in many ways, such as uploading their own content on blogs, consumer-evaluation platforms (e.g.
Amazon
Amazon most often refers to:
* Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology
* Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin
* Amazon River, in South America
* Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...
and
eBay
eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became a ...
), news websites (e.g. responding in the comment section), social networking services, media-sharing websites (e.g. YouTube and
Instagram
Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...
) and collaborative-writing projects. Some scholars argue that
cloud computing
Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage ( cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed over mul ...
is an example of Web 2.0 because it is simply an implication of computing on the Internet.
![How to edit a page Edit box](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/How_to_edit_a_page_Edit_box.png)
Web 2.0 offers almost all users the same freedom to contribute. While this opens the possibility for serious debate and collaboration, it also increases the incidence of
"spamming",
"trolling", and can even create a venue for
hate speech
Hate speech is defined by the ''Cambridge Dictionary'' as "public speech that expresses hate or encourages violence towards a person or group based on something such as race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation". Hate speech is "usually thoug ...
,
cyberbullying
Cyberbullying or cyberharassment is a form of bullying or harassment using electronic means. Cyberbullying and cyberharassment are also known as online bullying. It has become increasingly common, especially among teenagers, as the digital ...
, and
defamation
Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime. The legal defini ...
. The impossibility of excluding group members who do not contribute to the provision of goods (i.e., to the creation of a user-generated website) from sharing the benefits (of using the website) gives rise to the possibility that serious members will prefer to withhold their contribution of effort and
"free ride" on the contributions of others. This requires what is sometimes called
radical trust by the management of the Web site.
According to Best, the characteristics of Web 2.0 are rich user experience, user participation,
dynamic content
A server-side dynamic web page is a web page whose construction is controlled by an application server processing server-side scripts. In server-side scripting, parameters determine how the assembly of every new web page proceeds, and includin ...
,
metadata
Metadata is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including:
* Descriptive metadata – the descriptive ...
,
Web standards
Web standards are the formal, non-proprietary standards and other technical specifications that define and describe aspects of the World Wide Web. In recent years, the term has been more frequently associated with the trend of endorsing a set of s ...
, and
scalability
Scalability is the property of a system to handle a growing amount of work by adding resources to the system.
In an economic context, a scalable business model implies that a company can increase sales given increased resources. For example, a ...
. Further characteristics, such as openness, freedom, and
collective intelligence
Collective intelligence (CI) is shared or group intelligence (GI) that emerges from the collaboration, collective efforts, and competition of many individuals and appears in consensus decision making. The term appears in sociobiology, politic ...
by way of user participation, can also be viewed as essential attributes of Web 2.0. Some websites require users to contribute
user-generated content
User-generated content (UGC), alternatively known as user-created content (UCC), is any form of content, such as images, videos, text, testimonials, and audio, that has been posted by users on online platforms such as social media, discussion f ...
to have access to the website, to discourage "free riding".
![Mass Effect Wiki Collaboration](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/Mass_Effect_Wiki_Collaboration.png)
The key features of Web 2.0 include:
#
Folksonomy
Folksonomy is a classification system in which end users apply public tags to online items, typically to make those items easier for themselves or others to find later. Over time, this can give rise to a classification system based on those tags ...
– free classification of information; allows users to collectively classify and find information (e.g.
"tagging" of websites, images, videos or links)
# Rich
user experience – dynamic content that is responsive to user input (e.g., a user can "click" on an image to enlarge it or find out more information)
#
User participation – information flows two ways between the site owner and site users by means of evaluation, review, and online commenting. Site users also typically create
user-generated content
User-generated content (UGC), alternatively known as user-created content (UCC), is any form of content, such as images, videos, text, testimonials, and audio, that has been posted by users on online platforms such as social media, discussion f ...
for others to see (e.g.,
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...
, an online encyclopedia that anyone can write articles for or edit)
#
Software as a service
Software as a service (SaaS ) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as "on-demand software" and Web-based/Web-hosted software.
SaaS is con ...
(SaaS) – Web 2.0 sites developed
API
An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how ...
s to allow automated usage, such as by a
Web "app" (
software application
Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work.
At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...
) or a
mashup
#
Mass participation – near-universal web access leads to differentiation of concerns, from the traditional Internet user base (who tended to be
hacker
A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who uses their technical knowledge to achieve a goal or overcome an obstacle, within a computerized system by non-standard means. Though the term ''hacker'' has become associated in popu ...
s and computer hobbyists) to a wider variety of users, drastically changing the audience of internet users.
Technologies
The
client-side
Client-side refers to operations that are performed by the client in a client–server relationship in a computer network.
General concepts
Typically, a client is a computer application, such as a web browser, that runs on a user's local compute ...
(
Web browser
A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...
) technologies used in Web 2.0 development include
Ajax
Ajax may refer to:
Greek mythology and tragedy
* Ajax the Great, a Greek mythological hero, son of King Telamon and Periboea
* Ajax the Lesser, a Greek mythological hero, son of Oileus, the king of Locris
* ''Ajax'' (play), by the ancient Greek ...
and
JavaScript frameworks. Ajax programming uses
JavaScript
JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...
and the
Document Object Model
The Document Object Model (DOM) is a cross-platform and language-independent interface that treats an XML or HTML document as a tree structure wherein each node is an object representing a part of the document. The DOM represents a document wi ...
(DOM) to update selected regions of the page area without undergoing a full page reload. To allow users to continue interacting with the page, communications such as data requests going to the server are separated from data coming back to the page (
asynchronously).
Otherwise, the user would have to routinely wait for the data to come back before they can do anything else on that page, just as a user has to wait for a page to complete the reload. This also increases the overall performance of the site, as the sending of requests can complete quicker independent of blocking and queueing required to send data back to the client. The data fetched by an Ajax request is typically formatted in
XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...
or
JSON
JSON (JavaScript Object Notation, pronounced ; also ) is an open standard file format and data interchange format that uses human-readable text to store and transmit data objects consisting of attribute–value pairs and arrays (or other ser ...
(JavaScript Object Notation) format, two widely used
structured data
A data model is an abstract model that organizes elements of data and standardizes how they relate to one another and to the properties of real-world entities. For instance, a data model may specify that the data element representing a car be co ...
formats. Since both of these formats are natively understood by JavaScript, a programmer can easily use them to transmit structured data in their Web application.
When this data is received via Ajax, the JavaScript program then uses the Document Object Model to dynamically update the Web page based on the new data, allowing for rapid and interactive user experience. In short, using these techniques, web designers can make their pages function like desktop applications. For example,
Google Docs
Google Docs is an online word processor included as part of the free, web-based Google Docs Editors suite offered by Google, which also includes: Google Sheets, Google Slides, Google Drawings, Google Forms, Google Sites and Google Keep. Google Do ...
uses this technique to create a Web-based word processor.
As a widely available plug-in independent of
W3C
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. Founded in 1994 and led by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations that maintain full-time staff working to ...
standards (the World Wide Web Consortium is the governing body of Web standards and protocols),
Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a multimedia Computing platform, software platform used for production of Flash animation, animations, rich web applications, application software, desktop applications, mobile apps, mo ...
was capable of doing many things that were not possible pre-
HTML5
HTML5 is a markup language used for structuring and presenting content on the World Wide Web. It is the fifth and final major HTML version that is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendation. The current specification is known as the HTML ...
. Of Flash's many capabilities, the most commonly used was its ability to integrate streaming multimedia into HTML pages. With the introduction of HTML5 in 2010 and the growing concerns with Flash's security, the role of Flash became obsolete, with browser support ending on December 31, 2020.
In addition to Flash and Ajax, JavaScript/Ajax frameworks have recently become a very popular means of creating Web 2.0 sites. At their core, these frameworks use the same technology as JavaScript, Ajax, and the DOM. However, frameworks smooth over inconsistencies between Web browsers and extend the functionality available to developers. Many of them also come with customizable, prefabricated '
widgets' that accomplish such common tasks as picking a date from a calendar, displaying a data chart, or making a tabbed panel.
On the
server-side
In the client–server model, server-side refers to programs and operations that run on the server. This is in contrast to client-side programs and operations which run on the client.
General concepts
Typically, a server is a computer application ...
, Web 2.0 uses many of the same technologies as Web 1.0. Languages such as
Perl
Perl is a family of two high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming languages. "Perl" refers to Perl 5, but from 2000 to 2019 it also referred to its redesigned "sister language", Perl 6, before the latter's name was offici ...
,
PHP
PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared toward web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by The PHP Group ...
,
Python
Python may refer to:
Snakes
* Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia
** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia
* Python (mythology), a mythical serpent
Computing
* Python (pro ...
,
Ruby
A ruby is a pinkish red to blood-red colored gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum ( aluminium oxide). Ruby is one of the most popular traditional jewelry gems and is very durable. Other varieties of gem-quality corundum are called sa ...
, as well as
Enterprise Java (J2EE) and
Microsoft.NET Framework, are used by developers to output data dynamically using information from files and databases. This allows websites and web services to share
machine readable formats such as
XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...
(
Atom
Every atom is composed of a nucleus and one or more electrons bound to the nucleus. The nucleus is made of one or more protons and a number of neutrons. Only the most common variety of hydrogen has no neutrons.
Every solid, liquid, gas, and ...
,
RSS
RSS ( RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. Subscribing to RSS feeds can allow a user to keep track of many di ...
, etc.) and
JSON
JSON (JavaScript Object Notation, pronounced ; also ) is an open standard file format and data interchange format that uses human-readable text to store and transmit data objects consisting of attribute–value pairs and arrays (or other ser ...
. When data is available in one of these formats, another website can use it to
integrate a portion of that site's functionality.
Concepts
Web 2.0 can be described in three parts:
*
Rich web application — defines the experience brought from desktop to browser, whether it is "rich" from a graphical point of view or a usability/interactivity or features point of view.
*
Web-oriented architecture Web-oriented architecture (WOA) was coined in 2006 by Nick Gall of the Gartner's group. It is a software architecture style that extends service-oriented architecture (SOA) to web-based applications.
WOA was originally created by many web applicati ...
(WOA) — defines how Web 2.0 applications expose their functionality so that other applications can leverage and integrate the functionality providing a set of much richer applications. Examples are
feeds,
RSS feed
RSS ( RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. Subscribing to RSS feeds can allow a user to keep track of many di ...
s,
web services,
mashups.
*
Social Web
The social web is a set of social relations that link people through the World Wide Web. The social web encompasses how websites and software are designed and developed in order to support and foster social interaction. These online social inte ...
— defines how Web 2.0 websites tend to interact much more with the end user and make the end user an integral part of the website, either by adding his or her profile, adding comments on content, uploading new content, or adding
user-generated content
User-generated content (UGC), alternatively known as user-created content (UCC), is any form of content, such as images, videos, text, testimonials, and audio, that has been posted by users on online platforms such as social media, discussion f ...
(e.g., personal
digital photo
Digital photography uses cameras containing arrays of electronic photodetectors interfaced to an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) to produce images focused by a lens, as opposed to an exposure on photographic film. The digitized image is sto ...
s).
As such, Web 2.0 draws together the capabilities of
client
Client(s) or The Client may refer to:
* Client (business)
* Client (computing), hardware or software that accesses a remote service on another computer
* Customer or client, a recipient of goods or services in return for monetary or other valuable ...
- and
server
Server may refer to:
Computing
*Server (computing), a computer program or a device that provides functionality for other programs or devices, called clients
Role
* Waiting staff, those who work at a restaurant or a bar attending customers and su ...
-side software,
content syndication
Web syndication is a form of Broadcast syndication, syndication in which content is made available from one website to other sites. Most commonly, websites are made available to provide either summaries or full renditions of a website's recently ad ...
and the use of
network protocols
A communication protocol is a system of rules that allows two or more entities of a communications system to transmit information via any kind of variation of a physical quantity. The protocol defines the rules, syntax, semantics and synchroniza ...
. Standards-oriented Web browsers may use
plug-ins and software extensions to handle the content and user interactions. Web 2.0 sites provide users with
information storage
Data storage is the recording (storing) of information (data) in a storage medium. Handwriting, Phonograph record, phonographic recording, magnetic tape, and optical discs are all examples of storage media. Biological molecules such as RNA a ...
, creation, and dissemination capabilities that were not possible in the environment known as "Web 1.0".
Web 2.0 sites include the following features and techniques, referred to as the acronym
SLATES
SLATES (Search, Links, Authorship, Tags, Extensions, Signalling) is an initialism that describes the business impacting capabilities, derived from the effective use of Web 2.0 technologies in and across enterprises.
Origin of the term
This acron ...
by Andrew McAfee:
; Search
: Finding information through
keyword search
A search engine is an information retrieval software program that discovers, crawls, transforms and stores information for retrieval and presentation in response to user queries.
A search engine normally consists of four components, that are sear ...
.
; Links to other websites
: Connects information sources together using the model of the Web.
; Authoring
: The ability to create and update content leads to the collaborative work of many authors.
Wiki
A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pu ...
users may extend, undo, redo and edit each other's work. Comment systems allow readers to contribute their viewpoints.
; Tags
: Categorization of content by users adding "tags" — short, usually one-word or two-word descriptions — to facilitate searching. For example, a user can tag a metal song as "
death metal
Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. It typically employs heavily distorted and low-tuned guitars, played with techniques such as palm muting and tremolo picking; deep growling vocals; aggressive, powerful drumming, feat ...
". Collections of tags created by many users within a single system may be referred to as "folksonomies" (i.e.,
folk
Folk or Folks may refer to:
Sociology
*Nation
*People
* Folklore
** Folk art
** Folk dance
** Folk hero
** Folk music
*** Folk metal
*** Folk punk
*** Folk rock
** Folk religion
* Folk taxonomy
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Folk Plus or Fol ...
taxonomies).
; Extensions
: Software that makes the Web an
application platform as well as a document server. Examples include
Adobe Reader
Adobe Acrobat is a family of application software and Web services developed by Adobe Inc. to view, create, manipulate, print and manage Portable Document Format (PDF) files.
The family comprises Acrobat Reader (formerly Reader), Acrobat (forme ...
,
Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a multimedia Computing platform, software platform used for production of Flash animation, animations, rich web applications, application software, desktop applications, mobile apps, mo ...
,
Microsoft Silverlight
Microsoft Silverlight is a discontinued application framework designed for writing and running rich web applications, similar to Adobe Inc., Adobe's Run time environment, runtime, Adobe Flash. A plugin for Silverlight is still available for a v ...
,
ActiveX
ActiveX is a deprecated software framework created by Microsoft that adapts its earlier Component Object Model (COM) and Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) technologies for content downloaded from a network, particularly from the World Wide Web. ...
,
Oracle Java
Java is a set of computer software and specifications developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems, which was later acquired by the Oracle Corporation, that provides a system for developing application software and deploying it in a cros ...
,
QuickTime
QuickTime is an extensible multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. Created in 1991, the latest Mac version, QuickTime X, is avai ...
,
WPS Office
WPS Office (an acronym for Writer, Presentation and Spreadsheets, previously known as Kingsoft Office) is an office suite for Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, and HarmonyOS developed by Zhuhai-based Chinese software developer Kin ...
and
Windows Media Windows Media is a discontinued multimedia framework for media creation and distribution for Microsoft Windows. It consists of a software development kit (SDK) with several application programming interfaces (API) and a number of prebuilt technolo ...
.
; Signals
: The use of syndication technology, such as
RSS
RSS ( RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. Subscribing to RSS feeds can allow a user to keep track of many di ...
feeds to notify users of content changes.
While SLATES forms the basic framework of Enterprise 2.0, it does not contradict all of the higher level Web 2.0 design patterns and business models. It includes discussions of self-service IT, the long tail of enterprise IT demand, and many other consequences of the Web 2.0 era in enterprise uses.
Social Web
A third important part of Web 2.0 is the
social web
The social web is a set of social relations that link people through the World Wide Web. The social web encompasses how websites and software are designed and developed in order to support and foster social interaction. These online social inte ...
. The social Web consists of a number of online tools and platforms where people share their perspectives, opinions, thoughts and experiences. Web 2.0 applications tend to interact much more with the end user. As such, the end user is not only a user of the application but also a participant by:
*
Podcasting
A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosing ...
*
Blogging
A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...
*
Tagging
*
Curating with
RSS
RSS ( RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. Subscribing to RSS feeds can allow a user to keep track of many di ...
*
Social bookmarking
Social bookmarking is an online service which allows users to add, annotate, edit, and share bookmarks of web documents. Many online bookmark management services have launched since 1996; Delicious, founded in 2003, popularized the terms "social ...
*
Social networking
A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for an ...
*
Social media
Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...
*
Wiki
A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pu ...
s
*
Web content voting:
Review site
A review site is a website on which reviews can be posted about people, businesses, products, or services. These sites may use Web 2.0 techniques to gather reviews from site users or may employ professional writers to author reviews on the topic ...
or
Rating site
A review site is a website on which reviews can be posted about people, businesses, products, or services. These sites may use Web 2.0 techniques to gather reviews from site users or may employ professional writers to author reviews on the topic ...
The popularity of the term Web 2.0, along with the increasing use of blogs, wikis, and social networking technologies, has led many in academia and business to append a flurry of 2.0's to existing concepts and fields of study, including
Library 2.0
Library 2.0 is a proposed concept for library services that facilitate user contributions and other features of Web 2.0, which includes online services such as OPAC systems. The concept is based on Radical Trust, and proponents suggest it will e ...
, Social Work 2.0,
Enterprise 2.0
Web 2.0 (also known as participative (or participatory) web and social web) refers to websites that emphasize user-generated content, ease of use, participatory culture and interoperability (i.e., compatibility with other products, systems, and ...
, PR 2.0, Classroom 2.0, Publishing 2.0, Medicine 2.0, Telco 2.0,
Travel 2.0
A travel website is a website that provides travel reviews, trip fares, or a combination of both. Over 1.5 billion people book travel per year, 70% of which is done online.
Categories
Categories of travel websites include:
;Travelogues and blo ...
,
Government 2.0
E-government (short for electronic government) is the use of technological communications devices, such as computers and the Internet, to provide public services to citizens and other persons in a country or region. E-government offers new ...
, and even
Porn 2.0. Many of these 2.0s refer to Web 2.0 technologies as the source of the new version in their respective disciplines and areas. For example, in the Talis white paper "Library 2.0: The Challenge of Disruptive Innovation",
Paul Miller argues
Blogs, wikis and RSS are often held up as exemplary manifestations of Web 2.0. A reader of a blog or a wiki is provided with tools to add a comment or even, in the case of the wiki, to edit the content. This is what we call the Read/Write web. Talis believes that Library 2.0
Library 2.0 is a proposed concept for library services that facilitate user contributions and other features of Web 2.0, which includes online services such as OPAC systems. The concept is based on Radical Trust, and proponents suggest it will e ...
means harnessing this type of participation so that libraries can benefit from increasingly rich collaborative cataloging efforts, such as including contributions from partner libraries as well as adding rich enhancements, such as book jackets or movie files, to records from publishers and others.
Here, Miller links Web 2.0 technologies and the culture of participation that they engender to the field of library science, supporting his claim that there is now a "Library 2.0". Many of the other proponents of new 2.0s mentioned here use similar methods. The meaning of Web 2.0 is role dependent. For example, some use Web 2.0 to establish and maintain relationships through social networks, while some marketing managers might use this promising technology to "end-run traditionally unresponsive I.T. department
"
There is a debate over the use of Web 2.0 technologies in mainstream education. Issues under consideration include the understanding of students' different learning modes; the conflicts between ideas entrenched in informal online communities and educational establishments' views on the production and authentication of 'formal' knowledge; and questions about privacy, plagiarism, shared authorship and the ownership of knowledge and information produced and/or published on line.
Marketing
Web 2.0 is used by companies, non-profit organisations and governments for interactive
marketing
Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...
. A growing number of marketers are using Web 2.0 tools to collaborate with consumers on product development,
customer service
Customer service is the assistance and advice provided by a company to those people who buy or use its products or services. Each industry requires different levels of customer service, but in the end, the idea of a well-performed service is that ...
enhancement, product or service improvement and promotion. Companies can use Web 2.0 tools to improve collaboration with both its business partners and consumers. Among other things, company employees have created wikis—Websites that allow users to add, delete, and edit content — to list answers to frequently asked questions about each product, and consumers have added significant contributions.
Another marketing Web 2.0 lure is to make sure consumers can use the online community to network among themselves on topics of their own choosing. Mainstream media usage of Web 2.0 is increasing. Saturating media hubs—like ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
,
PC Magazine
''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and have continued to the present d ...
'' and ''
Business Week
''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...
'' — with links to popular new Web sites and services, is critical to achieving the threshold for mass adoption of those services. User web content can be used to gauge consumer satisfaction. In a recent article for Bank Technology News, Shane Kite describes how Citigroup's Global Transaction Services unit monitors
social media
Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...
outlets to address customer issues and improve products.
Destination marketing
In tourism industries, social media is an effective channel to attract travellers and promote tourism products and services by engaging with customers. The brand of tourist destinations can be built through marketing campaigns on social media and by engaging with customers. For example, the “Snow at First Sight” campaign launched by the
State of Colorado
Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the ...
aimed to bring brand awareness to Colorado as a winter destination. The campaign used social media platforms, for example, Facebook and Twitter, to promote this competition, and requested the participants to share experiences, pictures and videos on social media platforms. As a result, Colorado enhanced their image as a winter destination and created a campaign worth about $2.9 million.
The tourism organisation can earn brand royalty from interactive marketing campaigns on social media with engaging passive communication tactics. For example, “Moms” advisors of the
Walt Disney World
The Walt Disney World Resort, also called Walt Disney World or Disney World, is an entertainment resort complex in Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista, Florida, United States, near the cities of Orlando and Kissimmee. Opened on October 1, 1971, th ...
are responsible for offering suggestions and replying to questions about the family trips at Walt Disney World. Due to its characteristic of expertise in Disney, “Moms” was chosen to represent the campaign.
Social networking sites, such as Facebook, can be used as a platform for providing detailed information about the marketing campaign, as well as real-time online communication with customers. Korean Airline Tour created and maintained a relationship with customers by using Facebook for individual communication purposes.
Travel 2.0 refers a model of Web 2.0 on tourism industries which provides virtual travel communities. The travel 2.0 model allows users to create their own content and exchange their words through globally interactive features on websites.
The users also can contribute their experiences, images and suggestions regarding their trips through online travel communities. For example,
TripAdvisor is an online travel community which enables user to rate and share autonomously their reviews and feedback on hotels and tourist destinations. Non pre-associate users can interact socially and communicate through discussion forums on TripAdvisor.
Social media, especially Travel 2.0 websites, plays a crucial role in decision-making behaviors of travelers. The user-generated content on social media tools have a significant impact on travelers choices and organisation preferences. Travel 2.0 sparked radical change in receiving information methods for travelers, from business-to-customer marketing into peer-to-peer reviews. User-generated content became a vital tool for helping a number of travelers manage their international travels, especially for first time visitors.
The travellers tend to trust and rely on peer-to-peer reviews and virtual communications on social media rather than the information provided by travel suppliers.
In addition, an autonomous review feature on social media would help travelers reduce risks and uncertainties before the purchasing stages.
Social media is also a channel for customer complaints and negative feedback which can damage images and reputations of organisations and destinations.
For example, a majority of UK travellers read customer reviews before booking hotels, these hotels receiving negative feedback would be refrained by half of customers.
Therefore, the organisations should develop strategic plans to handle and manage the negative feedback on social media. Although the user-generated content and rating systems on social media are out of a business' controls, the business can monitor those conversations and participate in communities to enhance customer loyalty and maintain customer relationships.
Education
Web 2.0 could allow for more collaborative education. For example, blogs give students a public space to interact with one another and the content of the class.
Some studies suggest that Web 2.0 can increase the public's understanding of science, which could improve government policy decisions. A 2012 study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison notes that "...the internet could be a crucial tool in increasing the general public’s level of science literacy. This increase could then lead to better communication between researchers and the public, more substantive discussion, and more informed policy decision."
Web-based applications and desktops
Ajax
Ajax may refer to:
Greek mythology and tragedy
* Ajax the Great, a Greek mythological hero, son of King Telamon and Periboea
* Ajax the Lesser, a Greek mythological hero, son of Oileus, the king of Locris
* ''Ajax'' (play), by the ancient Greek ...
has prompted the development of Web sites that mimic desktop applications, such as
word processing
A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consen ...
, the
spreadsheet
A spreadsheet is a computer application for computation, organization, analysis and storage of data in tabular form. Spreadsheets were developed as computerized analogs of paper accounting worksheets. The program operates on data entered in cel ...
, and
slide-show presentation.
WYSIWYG
In computing, WYSIWYG ( ), an acronym for What You See Is What You Get, is a system in which editing software allows content to be edited in a form that resembles its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product, such as a printed d ...
wiki
A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pu ...
and
blog
A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...
ging sites replicate many features of PC authoring applications. Several browser-based services have emerged, including
EyeOS
eyeOS is a web desktop following the cloud computing concept that seeks to enable collaboration and communication among users. It is mainly written in PHP, XML, and JavaScript. It is a private-cloud application platform with a web-based deskto ...
and
YouOS
YouOS was a web desktop and web integrated development environment, developed by Webshaka until June 2008.
From 2006 to 2008 YouOS replicated the desktop environment of a modern operating system on a webpage, using JavaScript to communicate ...
.(No longer active.) Although named
operating systems
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also inc ...
, many of these services are application platforms. They mimic the user experience of desktop operating systems, offering features and applications similar to a PC environment, and are able to run within any modern browser. However, these so-called "operating systems" do not directly control the hardware on the client's computer. Numerous web-based application services appeared during the
dot-com bubble
The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet.
Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compo ...
of 1997–2001 and then vanished, having failed to gain a critical mass of customers.
Distribution of media
XML and RSS
Many regard syndication of site content as a Web 2.0 feature. Syndication uses standardized protocols to permit end-users to make use of a site's data in another context (such as another Web site, a
browser plugin
A browser extension is a small software module for customizing a web browser. Browsers typically allow a variety of extensions, including user interface modifications, HTTP cookie, cookie management, ad blocking, and the custom userscript, scriptin ...
, or a separate desktop application). Protocols permitting syndication include
RSS
RSS ( RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. Subscribing to RSS feeds can allow a user to keep track of many di ...
(really simple syndication, also known as Web syndication),
RDF (as in RSS 1.1), and
Atom
Every atom is composed of a nucleus and one or more electrons bound to the nucleus. The nucleus is made of one or more protons and a number of neutrons. Only the most common variety of hydrogen has no neutrons.
Every solid, liquid, gas, and ...
, all of which are
XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...
-based formats. Observers have started to refer to these technologies as
Web feed
On the World Wide Web, a web feed (or news feed) is a data format used for providing users with frequently updated content. Content distributors ''syndicate'' a web feed, thereby allowing users to ''subscribe'' a channel to it by adding the feed ...
s. Specialized protocols such as
FOAF
FOAF (an acronym of friend of a friend) is a machine-readable ontology describing persons, their activities and their relations to other people and objects. Anyone can use FOAF to describe themselves. FOAF allows groups of people to describe soc ...
and
XFN (both for social networking) extend the functionality of sites and permit end-users to interact without centralized Web sites.
Web APIs
Web 2.0 often uses machine-based interactions such as
REST
Rest or REST may refer to:
Relief from activity
* Sleep
** Bed rest
* Kneeling
* Lying (position)
* Sitting
* Squatting position
Structural support
* Structural support
** Rest (cue sports)
** Armrest
** Headrest
** Footrest
Arts and entert ...
and
SOAP
Soap is a salt of a fatty acid used in a variety of cleansing and lubricating products. In a domestic setting, soaps are surfactants usually used for washing, bathing, and other types of housekeeping. In industrial settings, soaps are use ...
. Servers often expose proprietary
Application programming interface
An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how t ...
s (API), but standard APIs (for example, for posting to a blog or notifying a blog update) have also come into use. Most communications through APIs involve
XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...
or
JSON
JSON (JavaScript Object Notation, pronounced ; also ) is an open standard file format and data interchange format that uses human-readable text to store and transmit data objects consisting of attribute–value pairs and arrays (or other ser ...
payloads. REST APIs, through their use of self-descriptive messages and
hypermedia as the engine of application state, should be self-describing once an entry
URI Uri may refer to:
Places
* Canton of Uri, a canton in Switzerland
* Úri, a village and commune in Hungary
* Uri, Iran, a village in East Azerbaijan Province
* Uri, Jammu and Kashmir, a town in India
* Uri (island), an island off Malakula Islan ...
is known.
Web Services Description Language
The Web Services Description Language (WSDL ) is an XML-based interface description language that is used for describing the functionality offered by a web service. The acronym is also used for any specific WSDL description of a web service (also ...
(WSDL) is the standard way of publishing a SOAP Application programming interface and there are
a range of Web service specifications.
Trademark
In November 2004,
CMP Media
UBM Technology Group, formerly CMP Publications, was a business-to-business multimedia company that provided information and integrated marketing services to technology professionals worldwide. It offered marketers and advertisers services such as ...
applied to the
USPTO
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an agency in the U.S. Department of Commerce that serves as the national patent office and trademark registration authority for the United States. The USPTO's headquarters are in Alexa ...
for a
service mark
A service mark or servicemark is a trademark used in the United States and several other countries to identify a service rather than a product.
When a service mark is federally registered, the standard registration symbol ® or "Reg U.S. ...
on the use of the term "WEB 2.0" for live events.
On the basis of this application, CMP Media sent a
cease-and-desist
A cease and desist letter is a document sent to an individual or business to stop alleged illegal activity. The phrase "cease and desist" is a legal doublet, made up of two near-synonyms. The letter may warn that, if the recipient does not disc ...
demand to the Irish non-profit organisation IT@Cork on May 24, 2006, but retracted it two days later. The "WEB 2.0" service mark registration passed final PTO Examining Attorney review on May 10, 2006, and was registered on June 27, 2006.
The
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
application (which would confer unambiguous status in Ireland) was declined on May 23, 2007.
Criticism
Critics of the term claim that "Web 2.0" does not represent a new version of the
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet.
Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web se ...
at all, but merely continues to use so-called "Web 1.0" technologies and concepts.
First, techniques such as
Ajax
Ajax may refer to:
Greek mythology and tragedy
* Ajax the Great, a Greek mythological hero, son of King Telamon and Periboea
* Ajax the Lesser, a Greek mythological hero, son of Oileus, the king of Locris
* ''Ajax'' (play), by the ancient Greek ...
do not replace underlying protocols like
HTTP
The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, ...
, but add a layer of abstraction on top of them. Second, many of the ideas of Web 2.0 were already featured in implementations on networked systems well before the term "Web 2.0" emerged.
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential economi ...
, for instance, has allowed users to write reviews and consumer guides since its launch in 1995, in a form of self-publishing. Amazon also opened its API to outside developers in 2002. Previous developments also came from research in
computer-supported collaborative learning
Computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) is a pedagogical approach wherein learning takes place via social interaction using a computer or through the Internet. This kind of learning is characterized by the sharing and construction of kno ...
and
computer-supported cooperative work
Computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) is the study of how people utilize technology collaboratively, often towards a shared goal. CSCW addresses how computer systems can support collaborative activity and coordination. More specifically, the ...
(CSCW) and from established products like
Lotus Notes
HCL Notes (formerly IBM Notes and Lotus Notes; see Branding below) and HCL Domino (formerly IBM Domino and Lotus Domino) are the client and server
Server may refer to:
Computing
*Server (computing), a computer program or a device that provide ...
and
Lotus Domino
HCL Notes (formerly IBM Notes and Lotus Notes; see Branding below) and HCL Domino (formerly IBM Domino and Lotus Domino) are the client and server, respectively, of a collaborative client-server software platform formerly sold by IBM, now by ...
, all phenomena that preceded Web 2.0.
Tim Berners-Lee
Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee (born 8 June 1955), also known as TimBL, is an English computer scientist best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web. He is a Professorial Fellow of Computer Science at the University of Oxford and a profess ...
, who developed the initial technologies of the Web, has been an outspoken critic of the term, while supporting many of the elements associated with it. In
the environment where the Web originated, each workstation had a
dedicated IP address
An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.. Updated by . An IP address serves two main functions: network interface identi ...
and always-on connection to the Internet. Sharing a file or publishing a web page was as simple as moving the file into a shared folder.
Perhaps the most common criticism is that the term is unclear or simply a
buzzword
A buzzword is a word or phrase, new or already existing, that becomes popular for a period of time. Buzzwords often derive from technical terms yet often have much of the original technical meaning removed through fashionable use, being simply used ...
. For many people who work in software, version numbers like 2.0 and 3.0 are for
software versioning
Software versioning is the process of assigning either unique ''version names'' or unique ''version numbers'' to unique states of computer software. Within a given version number category (e.g., major or minor), these numbers are generally assig ...
or hardware versioning only, and to assign 2.0 arbitrarily to many technologies with a variety of real version numbers has no meaning. The web does not have a version number. For example, in a 2006 interview with
IBM developerWorks
IBM Developer is a global community of coders, developer advocates, and digital resources that help developers learn, build, and connect. The IBM Developer website (previously known as IBM developerWorks) hosts a wide range of resources, tools, a ...
podcast editor Scott Laningham, Tim Berners-Lee described the term "Web 2.0" as a jargon:
[
]
"Nobody really knows what it means... If Web 2.0 for you is blogs and wikis, then that is people to people. But that was what the Web was supposed to be all along... Web 2.0, for some people, it means moving some of the thinking o the
O, or o, is the fifteenth letter and the fourth vowel letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''o'' (pronounced ), pl ...
client side, so making it more immediate, but the idea of the Web as interaction between people is really what the Web is. That was what it was designed to be... a collaborative space where people can interact."
Other critics labeled Web 2.0 "a second bubble" (referring to the
Dot-com bubble
The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet.
Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compo ...
of 1997–2000), suggesting that too many Web 2.0 companies attempt to develop the same product with a lack of
business model
A business model describes how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value,''Business Model Generation'', Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Alan Smith, and 470 practitioners from 45 countries, self-published, 2010 in economic, social, ...
s. For example, ''
The Economist
''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Econo ...
'' has dubbed the mid- to late-2000s focus on Web companies as "Bubble 2.0".
In terms of Web 2.0's social impact, critics such as
Andrew Keen
Andrew Keen (born c. 1960Saracevic, Alan T. (15 October 2006)Debate 2.0 / Weighing the merits of the new Webocracy.''San Francisco Chronicle'' ("Age: 46")) is a British-American entrepreneur and author. He is particularly known for his view tha ...
argue that Web 2.0 has created a cult of digital
narcissism
Narcissism is a self-centered personality style characterized as having an excessive interest in one's physical appearance or image and an excessive preoccupation with one's own needs, often at the expense of others.
Narcissism exists on a co ...
and amateurism, which undermines the notion of expertise by allowing anybody, anywhere to share and place undue value upon their own opinions about any subject and post any kind of content, regardless of their actual talent, knowledge, credentials, biases or possible hidden agendas. Keen's 2007 book, ''
Cult of the Amateur'', argues that the core assumption of Web 2.0, that all opinions and user-generated content are equally valuable and relevant, is misguided. Additionally, ''
Sunday Times
''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, whi ...
'' reviewer John Flintoff has characterized Web 2.0 as "creating an endless digital forest of mediocrity: uninformed political commentary, unseemly home videos, embarrassingly amateurish music, unreadable poems, essays and novels...
nd that Wikipedia is full ofmistakes, half-truths and misunderstandings". In a 1994 ''
Wired
''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fra ...
'' interview,
Steve Jobs
Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American entrepreneur, industrial designer, media proprietor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple; the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar; a ...
, forecasting the future development of the web for personal publishing, said "The Web is great because that person can't foist anything on you-you have to go get it. They can make themselves available, but if nobody wants to look at their site, that's fine. To be honest, most people who have something to say get published now." Michael Gorman, former president of the
American Library Association
The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with 49,727 members a ...
has been vocal about his opposition to Web 2.0 due to the lack of expertise that it outwardly claims, though he believes that there is hope for the future.
"The task before us is to extend into the digital world the virtues of authenticity, expertise, and scholarly apparatus that have evolved over the 500 years of print, virtues often absent in the manuscript age that preceded print".
There is also a growing body of critique of Web 2.0 from the perspective of
political economy
Political economy is the study of how Macroeconomics, economic systems (e.g. Marketplace, markets and Economy, national economies) and Politics, political systems (e.g. law, Institution, institutions, government) are linked. Widely studied ph ...
. Since, as Tim O'Reilly and John Batelle put it, Web 2.0 is based on the "customers... building your business for you,"
critics have argued that sites such as Google, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are exploiting the "free labor" of user-created content. Web 2.0 sites use Terms of Service agreements to claim perpetual licenses to user-generated content, and they use that content to create profiles of users to sell to marketers. This is part of increased surveillance of user activity happening within Web 2.0 sites. Jonathan Zittrain of Harvard's Berkman Center for the Internet and Society argues that such data can be used by governments who want to monitor dissident citizens. The rise of
AJAX
Ajax may refer to:
Greek mythology and tragedy
* Ajax the Great, a Greek mythological hero, son of King Telamon and Periboea
* Ajax the Lesser, a Greek mythological hero, son of Oileus, the king of Locris
* ''Ajax'' (play), by the ancient Greek ...
-driven web sites where much of the content must be rendered on the client has meant that users of older hardware are given worse performance versus a site purely composed of HTML, where the processing takes place on the server.
Accessibility
Accessibility is the design of products, devices, services, vehicles, or environments so as to be usable by people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design and practice of accessible development ensures both "direct access" (i. ...
for disabled or impaired users may also suffer in a Web 2.0 site.
Others have noted that Web 2.0 technologies are tied to particular political ideologies. "Web 2.0 discourse is a conduit for the materialization of neoliberal ideology." The technologies of Web 2.0 may also "function as a disciplining technology within the framework of a neoliberal political economy."
When looking at Web 2.0 from a cultural convergence view, according to Henry Jenkins,
it can be problematic because the consumers are doing more and more work in order to entertain themselves. For instance, Twitter offers online tools for users to create their own tweet, in a way the users are doing all the work when it comes to producing media content.
See also
*
Cloud computing
Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage ( cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed over mul ...
*
Collective intelligence
Collective intelligence (CI) is shared or group intelligence (GI) that emerges from the collaboration, collective efforts, and competition of many individuals and appears in consensus decision making. The term appears in sociobiology, politic ...
*
Connectivity
Connectivity may refer to:
Computing and technology
* Connectivity (media), the ability of the social media to accumulate economic capital from the users connections and activities
* Internet connectivity, the means by which individual terminals, ...
of social media
*
Crowd computing
*
Enterprise social software Enterprise social software (also known as or regarded as a major component of Enterprise 2.0), comprises social software as used in "enterprise" (business/commercial) contexts. It includes social and networked modifications to corporate intranets a ...
*
Mass collaboration
Mass collaboration is a form of collective action that occurs when large numbers of people work independently on a single project, often modular in its nature. Such projects typically take place on the internet using social software and computer-s ...
*
New media
New media describes communication technologies that enable or enhance interaction between users as well as interaction between users and content. In the middle of the 1990s, the phrase "new media" became widely used as part of a sales pitch for ...
*
Office suite
Productivity software (also called personal productivity software or office productivity software) is application software used for producing information (such as documents, presentations, worksheets, databases, charts, graphs, digital paintings, ...
*
Open source governance
Open-source governance (also known as open governance and open politics) is a political philosophy which advocates the application of the philosophies of the open-source and open-content movements to democratic principles to enable any interes ...
*
Privacy issues of social networking sites
*
Responsive web design
*
Social commerce
Social commerce is a subset of electronic commerce that involves social media and online media that supports social interaction, and user contributions to assist online buying and selling of products and services.
More succinctly, social commerce ...
*
Social shopping
Social shopping is a method of e-commerce where shoppers' friends become involved in the shopping experience. Social shopping attempts to use technology to mimic the social interactions found in physical malls and stores. With the rise of mobile ...
*
Web 2.0 for development Participatory Web 2.0 for development (in short Web2forDev) was a term coined around 2007-2008 to describe new ways of employing legemvweb services, in order to improve information sharing and collaborative production of content in the context of d ...
(web2fordev)
*
Web 3.0
*
You (Time Person of the Year)
"You" was the official choice for ''Time''s Person of the Year in 2006. The magazine set out to recognize the millions of people who anonymously contribute user-generated content to websites such as YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Wikipedia and ...
*
Libraries in Second Life
*
List of free software for Web 2.0 Services
All web applications, both traditional and Web 2.0, are operated by software running somewhere. This is a list of free software which can be used to run alternative web applications. Also listed are similar proprietary web applications that users ...
*
Cute cat theory of digital activism
The cute cat theory of digital activism is a theory concerning Internet activism, Web censorship, and "cute cats" (a term used for any low-value, but popular online activity) developed by Ethan Zuckerman in 2008. It posits that most people are ...
*
Web3
Web3 (also known as Web 3.0) is an idea for a new iteration of the World Wide Web which incorporates concepts such as decentralization, blockchain technologies, and token-based economics. Some technologists and journalists have contrasted it w ...
; Application domains
*
Sci-Mate
Sci-Mate was a proposal for an open collaboration of scientists using Web 2.0 software to address well known challenges in academic publishing and technology transfer. The site provided free access to a collection of Web 2.0 software applications i ...
*
Business 2.0
''Business 2.0'' was a monthly magazine publication founded by magazine entrepreneur Chris Anderson, Mark Gross, and journalist James Daly in order to chronicle the rise of the " New Economy". First published in July 1998, the magazine was sold ...
*
E-learning 2.0
*
e-Government
E-government (short for electronic government) is the use of technological communications devices, such as computers and the Internet, to provide public services to citizens and other persons in a country or region. E-government offers new ...
(Government 2.0)
*
Health 2.0
"Health 2.0" is a term introduced in the mid-2000s, as the subset of health care technologies mirroring the wider Web 2.0 movement. It has been defined variously as including social media, user-generated content, and cloud-based and mobile technolo ...
*
Science 2.0
Science 2.0 is a suggested new approach to science that uses information-sharing and collaboration made possible by network technologies. It is similar to the open research and open science movements and is inspired by Web 2.0 technologies. Scien ...
References
External links
*
*
{{Semantic Web
2000s in computing
Brand management
Cloud applications
Internet ages
Internet culture
New media
Social information processing
Technology neologisms
Web services
1999 neologisms
1990s in computing